Sister Warriors, Get Ready for The Hundredth Queen!

You know that wonderful moment when you get to read that book that you’ve been DYING to read, and it’s even BETTER than you expected?! Well, that was The Hundredth Queen by Emily R. King for me!

This book is PERFECT for fans of The Girl of Fire and Thorns, The Wrath and the Dawn, and Graceling.

Wine Pairing

The Hundredth Queen by Emily R. King

This Zampa Syrah is perhaps the only wine that is beautiful enough to be placed side-by-side with this incredible book cover. It is also a spicy red wine, and spicy is certainly one way to describe Kalinda’s character, as well as those of the many AMAZING women in this book. The label hints at the dual roles Kalinda will be forced to play in order to survive.

*All wine recommendations are for strictly for those of legal drinking age only.*

It’s All In The Details

Title: The Hundredth Queen

Author: Emily R. King

Publisher: Skyscape

Pub Date: June 1, 2017

Goodreads Description:

As an orphan ward of the Sisterhood, eighteen-year-old Kalinda is destined for nothing more than a life of seclusion and prayer. Plagued by fevers, she’s an unlikely candidate for even a servant’s position, let alone a courtesan or wife. Her sole dream is to continue living in peace in the Sisterhood’s mountain temple.

But a visit from the tyrant Rajah Tarek disrupts Kalinda’s life. Within hours, she is ripped from the comfort of her home, set on a desert trek, and ordered to fight for her place among the rajah’s ninety-nine wives and numerous courtesans. Her only solace comes in the company of her guard, the stoic but kind Captain Deven Naik.

Faced with the danger of a tournament to the death—and her growing affection for Deven—Kalinda’s only hope for escape lies in an arcane, forbidden power that’s buried within her.

In Emily R. King’s thrilling fantasy debut, an orphan girl blossoms into a warrior, summoning courage and confidence in her fearless quest to upend tradition, overthrow an empire, and reclaim her life as her own.

My Review

On top of being an all-around AMAZING story, there are some great messages in this book about sisterhood, faith, feminism, and what it truly means to be a woman.

The story itself is incredibly addictive and fast-paced. The plot is layered beautifully with twists and turns that you’ll never see coming. Emily delivers bombshell after bombshell that create a fascinating backstory for this world. I personally can’t wait to learn even more about it in the next book.

Kali is a fantastic main character and definitely one that you will root for. She has weaknesses that she has to overcome in order to survive, which significantly increases the stakes in this story while also making her relatable. She is intelligent and witty. Watching her navigate both the political pitfalls of court and the physical dangers of the tournament is entertaining and empowering. You’ll want to BE Kali after reading this book.

Kali’s relationship with her best friend Jaya is loving and BEAUTIFUL. I feel like there are too few strong female friendships in YA fantasy. The only other author I’ve seen depict a friendship between women this well is Susan Dennard in Truthwitch. Female characters in fantasy are far too often depicted as loners or as having mainly male counterparts, which contributes to a sort of stereotype that strong women can’t have loving friendships with other women, which is not the case in life and shouldn’t be the default in fiction.

All the women in this story are captivating. It’s so fascinating to watch Kali build relationships with the other wives and courtesans. They’re fierce, they’re warriors, they’re loving, they’re complex, and they’re absolutely inspirational. Emily explores the true meaning of sisterhood in this book in way that I’ve never seen done on such a large scale before, and she does it expertly.

There are also some GREAT male characters in this story as well. Captain Deven Naik is the super swoony love interest that you’ve been dreaming of, and while I found Rajah Tarek terrible and vile, he has a backstory that transforms him into the type of villain you’ll just love to hate.

The magic system is also very well-developed with clear rules, so it maintains absolute believability throughout. I feel like we just got to brush the surface of the magic in this book, and I’m so excited to see more of it in book two.

Clearly, I LOVED this book. I cannot recommend it highly enough! It is set to hit the shelves on June 1, 2017, so mark those TBR lists. And the sequel, The Fire Queen, already has a tentative release date of September 26, 2017, so thankfully we won’t have long to wait between books in what is sure to be a treasure of a series.

Cover Rating

This cover is just quite simply BEAUTIFUL. The color scheme is off-the-charts amazing. I love the gorgeous henna tattoos on the hand as well as the fact that Kali is holding the vial of liquid, which plays such an important role in this story. Let’s all just take a moment to gaze upon it.

Swoon Rating

Oh, Captain Deven Naik, you are officially my new book boyfriend. Since Kali is betrothed to the Rajeh, her feelings for Deven are absolutely forbidden, which increases not only the stakes of their relationship but the heat behind their stolen moments as well!

Emily R. King is a reader of everything and a writer of fantasy. Born in Canada and raised in the USA, she has perfected the use of “eh” and “y’all” and uses both interchangeably. Shark advocate, consumer of gummy bears, and islander at heart, Emily’s greatest interests are her four children. She’s a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and an active participant in her local writers’ community. She lives in Northern Utah with her family and their cantankerous cat.

Are you guys excited for The Hundredth Queen to come out? What are some other books that you felt had fantastic representations of feminism? What are some of your most anticipated 2017 debut novels?

32 thoughts on “Sister Warriors, Get Ready for The Hundredth Queen!”

I had this one on my TBR already, but your enthusiastic review has made me even more excited!

I’ve got a lot of books coming out this year to look forward to. The debut coming out the soonest is The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. It’s got a lot of hype around it, so I’ll have to be a bit wary because hype can sometimes be bad for a book, but I think it’ll go alright.

It might just be me too, so there’s totally a chance you’ll like it much better. I hope that, anyway. There are some books I can tell that I just can’t really like that someone else might, and then there are ones that I can’t get how anyone could. This is the former, I think.

Okay, I’m super mad at my Reader because it never showed me this but I knew it was true that it was here. Okay, now that I’m here, I’m kind of upset because I WANT THIS SO BADLY NOW. OMG. It sounds soooooooo good, and the love interest is a Captain? :O If I wasn’t already sold on the other amazing qualities (like loving female relationships which YA struggles with so much), I would have been in swoony feels already. BUT OMG. I’mma have to get my pre-order on this stat.

Ooooh this one sounds really good! There are several things that appeal to me right off the bat: the healthy female friendships and feminism, the fact that we won’t get another Stockholm syndrome type of heroine, the Graceling comparison and the romance. I’m such a sucker for guards as love interests, I really have a problem XD
Great review as always, Krysti! I’m really looking forward to picking up this one 🙂

Sophie, it’s so amazing! I really think you would like it. I am just so blown away by how perfectly it embodied the true spirit of feminism, and it’s also really fun and a great story to boot! LOL. There is definitely something about a swoony guard in a fantasy story. 🙂 Thank you!!!

Oohh yeah, I’d heard about it a couple months ago!
The thing is I really hated what SJM did to his character in the last two/three books and I don’t know if I’ll enjoy his development further on. It’s been established she doesn’t care much for his character and is all for Rowan now so I, as a hardcore Chaolin shipper, have mixed feelings about this novel. I’ll definitely be reading it though 🙂
Dorian is awesome! And I love their bromance, it’s so sweet ❤ But I don't see him as book boyfriend material at all XD We'd probably be BFFs, though. He's adorable!

So here’s the thing. I don’t like Rowan, Sophie! My book bestie LOVES him, and I just CANNOT get into him. I can’t. I am Team Dorian, but Chaol is a close second. There were definite part of Queen of Shadows where I did not like him though, and that made me sad. I really think he’s going to have a totally redemptive arc in this one though and a good romance. At least I HOPE so!

I’m so glad we’re on the same page with Rowan!! I honestly can’t stand him. I did like him before the whole romance thing started and I really enjoyed his friendship with Celaena. Bu then… Ugh
I honestly love Dorian. He makes me laugh so much! But we got very little of him in the last few books… Very little of Chaol too. It’s like everything is about Rowan now and that’s not okay. We want more Dorian and Chaol!
I thought Chaol was out of character throughout most of QoS. And I felt his and Celaena’s “reasons” for breaking up were ridiculous and made no sense. Their arguments made no sense, either. You could definitely tell Maas was forcing it to happen in order to move on to Rowan.
So let’s see! I certainly would love if that were to happen as I can’t stand this abuse poor Chaol is getting 😦 (And don’t even get me started on his new romance.)
Would be lovely to see more of Dorian too! And with a happy ending, if possible!

EXACTLY. I LOVE him as her friend, but not as her mate. 😦 Yeah, I feel like she’s trying to force a Rhysand type relationship there, and it just doesn’t work. Personally, now that it’s all out that she’s royalty, I want her and Dorian to end up together. Clearly, that’s not happening, but that is my OTP. It’s so hard. I do love all the characters so much, and I want them all to have these great endings, but at the same time, I hate it when epic fantasies don’t include major character deaths. I just can’t say who I’d want it to be…

I honestly laughed/coughed/choked with the carranam part. Because I had seen it coming a mile away but I had hoped it wouldn’t actually happen. It was so… Cheesy.
I would absolutely prefer Dorian to Rowan, if Chaol wasn’t an option. I haven’t read EoS yet but from previous books, I can already tell that relationship is not a very good or healthy one. Sigh.
Oooohhh I totally agree. But it’s still not too late! *evil laugh*
(Thank God for fanfiction/fanart!)